


Until Lies Become Truth

by fromaseasidetown



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Cherik - Freeform, Codependency, Dark Charles, Depression, Fix-It, I'm making this sound like a really cheerful fic ofc, Insanity, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read, Poor Erik, Purple Prose, Stockholm Syndrome, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 08:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7214359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromaseasidetown/pseuds/fromaseasidetown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It occurs to Erik the night before they leave the mansion, although he keeps it carefully concealed; the revelation that there is no love between the two of them, only an ornately crafted deception, a complex brainwashing only a powerful telepath could execute."</p>
<p>Dark!Charles AU where Erik is paranoid about being subliminally influenced and controlled by Charles. Covers the entirety of the new trilogy including XMA. Semi-happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until Lies Become Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Thanks for checking out my fic. 
> 
> This is a depressing idea I had after the Cherik scene in XMA. I guess it's KIND OF a fix-it fic, but not really because it's not fixing anything (haha). Title (and its use in the story) comes from the anime Black Butler. Sorry for excessive purple-prose, but I hope it conveys the idea!

Erik Lensherr has a gift with metal. He can bend it however he pleases, shaping it and crafting it.  
Most metalworkers are used to the brutality of cold hard steel and the inflexibility of titanium and iron. They pound it with hammers and mallets, heating it until it’s hot enough to brand. Erik understands this sort of violence, how you can bend the world to your will through brute force.  
What he does with metal is much more insidious. He can make it soft, slithering into smooth, oblique curlicues too ornate for any craftsman to replicate. He can pull oceans of it from white-hot vats, letting it roll like some aqueous, flowing beast to devour everything it its path. He knows the limits of his power and of the dangerous responsibility it holds.

Charles Xavier is like that too, although he doesn’t want to admit it. Sometimes Erik misses the soft purr of Charles in that void at the back of his mind. He knows that their times together were wonderful, almost magical in their happiness, but they were lies.  
What Charles weaves are fairytales, raising them up from all a person’s hopes and dreams, coming down to envelop them completely. With his crystalline eyes and ingénue’s smile, he fooled Erik in the most hurtful way possible – pulling power from Erik’s own memories and desires. It occurs to Erik the night before they leave the mansion, although he keeps it carefully concealed; the revelation that there is no love between the two of them, only an ornately crafted deception, a complex brainwashing only a powerful telepath could execute.  
When Erik places Shaw’s helmet on his head for the first time, the emptiness of that lonely void crashes down all at once until he is finally locked into reality. But there is a reprieve from the darkness too, which had haunted him since he had first locked eyes with Charles.

The last memory Erik has of Charles, at least for a while, is from the beach in Cuba. The telepath is lying prone in the sand as Erik rushes to him, as he drags the bullet from his body with a vicious, practiced hand. He cannot feel the agony rolling off Charles in waves – the sheer unguarded force of hurt, fear, and betrayal.  
Now, all that is left of the moment is in curled-up papers stolen from the plane, stowed deep in a private pocket of Erik’s suitcase. Just like that, the memories are buried under new experiences, for better or worse. For a while, Erik tries to think nothing of Charles. He leaves him, in spirit, in that lonely void at the back of his mind, that empty corner where he once held every tender feeling between himself and the telepath. It is actually difficult for him to remember the darkness he had been relieved of so vividly. He only remembers that it was an oppressive weight.  
The next time he sees Charles, he does not feel it at all. There is only a broken man, who punches Erik with all of his meager might, who does not need telepathy to broadcast his emotions.    
“I’m never getting inside that head again,” he hisses.

“I did it so that I could sleep,” The telepath tells him, voice breaking and eyes tired.  
Erik is suspicious. This is no clever mind game or intricate deception. But tendrils of sympathy are far more arresting than incepted fantasies.  
Charles’s eyes are heavy with dark circles, but there is another tiredness within them. Right in that dark dot of pupil at the center of an ocean of blue. The void at the back of Erik’s head feels too empty now, yes – there’s nothing, no bad memories, no GOOD memories, no Charles. It’s a terrible thing and Erik does not like it one bit. He feels drowned in his regret and sorrow. Maybe he was wrong about Charles, the feeling in the void whispers. Erik realizes how he needs to feel Charles there, needs to have the comfort of his presence. Looking into that ocean of blue without the darkness and the weight is a new kind of torture.  
Perhaps Charles didn’t need his telepathy to tangle Erik’s heart in a web of lies. This web was of Erik’s own design.

“He’s all yours, Charles.”  
Oh no. No.  
But before Erik can do anything to stop him, Charles is rushing into his mind. It is everything, equal parts light and darkness, sound and deafening silence. Erik recognizes that this is Charles’s unadulterated consciousness; he has not felt the presence of it so intensely before. He is hauled to his feet as he feels Charles drawing his power to the surface of his mind, like a massage coaxing heat into stiff, immovable muscles. There is a murmuring at the raw junction of their minds, and Erik cannot tell if it is coming from Charles or himself.  
 _Do you even have any idea what we could accomplish together?  
_ _All of this power, a pinprick of light, a singularity.  
_ _We could command_ galaxies _, my friend.  
_ _If you would only just come home to me---  
_ He remembers nothing until he is standing, eyes locked with Charles, who has relinquished his iron grip on Erik’s mind. He looks like his old self – demure and feckless. And it is a lie, just like everything else. Maybe Erik never noticed before, but he _craves_ the darkness and the weight, wants to see beneath that placid surface to what is equal parts disturbed and disturbing. He would take off the helmet and let Charles have him, _have_ him.  
But it’s too late now because Hank is here and Erik feels himself turning away.  
“Goodbye, old friend.”  
“Goodbye Erik.”

After Cairo, there is some quiet in his mind, finally. The mansion is rebuilt; it only seemed appropriate for Erik to help. Then Charles asks him to stay, at least for a little while.  
“Erik, can you just promise me one thing?” Now Charles’s voice is soft in Erik’s ear.  
Erik sighs, rolling over in the bed. “We’ve both made promises and broken them. Isn’t it enough?”  
Charles insinuates himself into Erik’s new position, wrapping slender arms around his waist. “I cannot hold you accountable for the mistakes you’ve made. They were just that, my friend… mistakes.” His voice is soft and wheedling.  
“All right. What is it that you want me to promise?”  
“That you won’t leave me alone again.”  
Charles is bonier where he used to be plump, broader where he used to be feminine. His pale skin lacks some of the rosy glow it once had and the dark circles under his eyes are pronounced in the darkness of their bedroom. Erik brushes a strand of hair from his forehead; the telepath leans into his touch. “I promise,” Erik says, his words guarded ever so slightly, “I devote myself to you.”  
“And only to me?” Charles presses a kiss to Erik’s lips.  
“Until lies become truth.” Erik murmurs against him.

Charles Xavier told lies to Erik Lensherr from the day they met, and he would keep telling them until the day he died. As Erik ran his fingertips down Charles’s arm, chilly from the night air, he found he could not bring himself to _care_. From Charles’s lips or his thoughts, it hardly mattered; when they were close like this, their minds bled together in a single lulling stream of consciousness. And Erik could see that Charles believed the lies. The two of them were wrapped, eternally, in rippling curlicues of truth and untruth, emanating (Erik assumed) from the dark corners of Charles’s manipulative mind.  
But perhaps from the telepath’s view, through the ever-distorted windowpanes of his oozing, invasive brain, this was simply the natural order for the two of them. There was no reason to keep trying to escape it, Erik rationalized, although his better judgement pleaded with him.  
The void buzzed with the darkness and with the weight.  
Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief and he lost himself in the tendrils of the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Now the only question is - is it Charles or Erik who's insane?? Thanks very much for reading. As always, please share any comments below! I'm looking forward to your feedback. :)


End file.
